Provincial Museum of Alberta

Corporate body

Provincial Museum of Alberta

From 1913 until 1942 a Jesuit College for boys occupied the original structure of the Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta. In 1942, the U.S Army assumed the building for use as a holding and forwarding centre for the U.S. Army personnel and civilian engineers employed in the construction of the Alaska Highway. In 1944, the U.S. Army departed, and the Government of Canada purchased the remaining property and equipment, and the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps established the Edmonton Military Hospital. The Canadian Army then connected the detached buildings to the main building. In the summer of 1945, Dr. W. Lynn Falconer, assistant to the Acting Superintendent of Medical Services for Indian Affairs in Ottawa, arrived in Edmonton to determine if the facility constituted a suitable site for a tuberculosis hospital for the Inuit and other First Nations groups in Alberta, the Yukon Territory, and parts of the Northwest Territories. Following the inspection, a conversion occurred and the hospital admitted its first patients at the end of 1945. For several months, the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps and Indian Health Services ran the hospital jointly. Transfer of the land and buildings from the Department of Defense to the Department of National Health and Welfare transpired on June 1, 1946. The Charles Camsell Hospital, named after Dr. Charles Camsell, a former geologist and Deputy Minister of Mines and Resources (1920-1946), officially opened on August 26, 1946. In 1964, the Federal Government approved plans for the construction of a new hospital building. On July 11, 1967 equipment, staff, and patients moved into the new building. In the 1970's, the Charles Camsell Hospital became a general treatment hospital. In 1992, the Charles Camsell merged with the Royal Alexandra Hospital.